The summer of 2007, Adirondack Theatre Festival's 13th season, ended with TICK...TICK...BOOM!, an autobiographical musical by Jonathan Larson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer of RENT, who died tragically following that show’s dress rehearsal in 1996 at the age of 36. This season marked the end of Artistic Director Martha Banta and Producing Director David Turner’s leadership of ATF 15 years after they founded the company. Given the unique history which Ms. Banta and ATF shared with Jonathan Larson, there could not be a more perfect way to have celebrated the end of one era for ATF, and the beginning of another.
This video features excerpts from NO DAY BUT TODAY, the full-length documentary film which accompanied the motion picture version of RENT’s release on DVD in 2006. This documentary tells the story of Janathan Larson and RENT, and in this section ATF Artistic Director Martha Banta (who served as the original Asst. Director of RENT), as well as others, discuss Larson’s single-minded devotion to his art, a topic which makes up the main theme of TICK...TICK...BOOM!. As well, Larson is shown here on his last day as a waiter at the Moondance Diner, a job he held for years and is depicted in several scenes in TICK...TICK...BOOM! TICK...TICK...BOOM! was written in the late 1980s as Larson approached his 30th Birthday, and while it had a small Off-Off-Broadway production at that time with Larson accompanying himself on keyboard, the version which ATF is producing was re-written after his death with the consent of his family.
In January 1996 Martha, David, and some ATF founders had breakfast with Jonathan Larson to discuss commissioning his next musical which would premiere at ATF. A handshake was made, and days later Larson died. ATF’s second annual Winter Benefit was scheduled for the Monday following Larson’s death in Lake George, and rather than announce this exciting commission Martha inserted two songs from RENT, a musical no one in the audience had ever heard of, into the evening’s program to honor her friend. Weeks later RENT exploded into the popular culture winning every award possible, and ATF’s audience had been among the first in the world to hear it. The dreams and struggles which Jonathan Larson had described so vividly in TICK...TICK...BOOM! years before had all come true, and he was not there to see it all happen.
